


Falling Slowly

by jammeke



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-03
Updated: 2012-10-03
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jammeke/pseuds/jammeke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mordred wouldn't bother Camelot again. Arthur had made sure of that; had paid the highest price in ensuring he wouldn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Slowly

In the aftermath of the battle, his men wouldn't look at him. They buried their comrades, their fallen friends, salvaged what was left of their weapons, and left the field as quickly as they could. Enemy soldiers were either taken captive or killed, depending on the size of their weapons and the look on their faces. 

No one stopped Mordred from travelling back with them. Indeed, not a single sound of protest was made. 

Arthur didn’t try to stop the man either. Wasn't sure he could. 

\- - - 

The courtyard was filled with people, their faces drawn and tired; their hands dirty, blood-stained, both, or not there at all. They had fought this long and hard battle with him. They had given everything they had. The scars of their fight were littered all over Camelot, evident on stone, wood and human flesh for all to see.

“You must be happy,” Mordred observed quietly. Unlike the capes surrounding him, his did not move in the wind. “You won.”

“I did,” Arthur said, looking out over the courtyard. 

The faces of his people were not ecstatic; they were worn, tired.

They did not look like victors at all. 

\- - - 

Gwen did not move when he slipped into their bed later that evening. One of Gaius’s vials rested on the nightstand beside her head. The old physician was long gone, his ashes scattered across the land, but those curiously shaped glass vials would always be his; had been ever since Morgana—

Arthur cut off that thought abruptly; did not wish to go there, not even now. 

Gwen stirred in her sleep.

Arthur studied her, but did not reach out to soothe away whatever it was that troubled her. He had not touched her intimately in years; their sleeping arrangement a mere formality these days. Her heart belonged to Lancelot. That—that was good. She deserved to be happy. 

Arthur looked at the slow rise and fall of his wife’s chest, and wondered when it had come to this.

\- - - 

Mordred disappeared that night.

Arthur did not worry. The man wouldn’t bother Camelot again. 

He'd made sure of that; had paid the highest price in ensuring he wouldn’t. 

\- - - 

Just one face was missing during the council session the following morning. One beautiful face, so familiar and dear he would know—love—it anywhere.

_Oh, Merlin._

Gwaine was watching him, his gaze heavy on Arthur as Leon spoke. Arthur ignored him, focused instead on his first knight’s words, the worryingly dark circles beneath his eyes.

Gwaine did not blame him, Arthur knew, but the man had always cared more about Merlin’s wellbeing than Arthur’s.

And Arthur? Arthur had hurt Merlin in the worst possible way.

\- - - 

Slowly, people started picking up the pieces. The servants cleaned away the shattered glass, the broken furniture, the lifeless bodies. The maids rubbed at the scorch marks until they were visible no more. The townspeople helped rebuild the castle walls. 

Gwen shone. She was incredible—every bit the woman Arthur had chosen to be his Queen, every bit the support the people needed in these uncertain times.

Lancelot went wherever she went, lending her quiet strength. Arthur watched them, did not feel as bothered by the obvious love they had for each other as he might have, once—that ache had faded a long time ago.

Merlin’s absence, however, grew more intolerable by the day. Arthur had hoped that perhaps, miraculously, he’d walk back into Camelot, back into the Kingdom they’d built together. But he did not. Would not. The hole inside Arthur’s chest—the place where his heart should be—became all the emptier for it. 

“He’s not coming back,” Gwaine said to him one night. “I’d hoped . . .”

“As did I.” Arthur studied the empty table in front of him. Gwaine hadn’t touched a tankard since their return. Arthur knew his lips would never touch mead again.

“He was aware of the risks,” Gwaine said, gazing off into the distance, seeing things Arthur did not see himself. “He was worried. Warned you a hundred times.”

“I know.” Arthur glanced around the room, and wondered when he’d started feeling like an intruder in his own chambers. They were no longer his, felt too empty—devoid of happiness, of Merlin, of—

“I think it’s time for me to go,” Gwaine said.

Arthur did not watch him leave.

The next morning, Gwaine was gone.

\- - -

It took some time, a lot of time, but with Gwen’s efforts, the knights’ determination and the people’s resilience, Camelot slowly started flourishing once more. Change was taking place. Every day, she threw off more of the dark cloud that had tried—and failed—to take her down. 

Arthur was relieved. Grateful.

He still longed to see that face, that dear face—if only one last time—but resignation was settling in, and he was learning to accept he would not.

When Gwen’s body swelled with Lancelot’s seed, and Lancelot took Arthur’s place in Arthur’s bed, Arthur slipped out of the castle, into the woods. 

For the first and last time, he turned his back on Camelot with no intention of ever coming back. 

\- - - 

Morgana awaited him at the lake. She did not speak, held out a pale hand. 

He unbuckled his scabbard, offered her Excalibur, then his arm. 

She squeezed it softly and helped him into her boat.

It rocked dangerously back and forth, but Arthur was not afraid of falling out. Worry was seeping out of him, all the little things—the things he’d deemed so important once—were trickling into the dark water beneath him. He watched them disappear; fade away, until one thing remained—the most poignant of them all. “Merlin?”

Morgana did not speak at first, did not want to, perhaps, Gaius’s vials still weighing on her mind, but then she said, “He’s lost. For now. He will find his way.”

“Will he be happy?” The mist that had seemed so far away mere seconds ago was rapidly getting closer, encircling the boat, his feet.

Her face gave nothing away. “Perhaps. Eventually. If he allows himself to be.”

“He should have stayed with his friends.” Arthur’s words hung in the air. The sorrow in them kept the swirls of mist at bay, for now. “They could have helped him.”

“Oh, Arthur.” Morgana’s eyes glistened. “He could not live in Camelot without you. We all knew.” She looked away. “You knew.”

He’d suspected. And yet he’d hoped, oh, he’d _hoped_ —

Perhaps that, holding on to that humanly hope, was the reason why he’d waited for so long—why Mordred and Gwaine had left long before he had. They had not been more fortunate than Arthur, nor had they been more unfortunate—they’d simply been unlucky enough to die on the same day as Arthur; one by Arthur’s side, one by Arthur’s sword.

They’d moved on. And now, so would he.

“I wish,” he said, but it was with less conviction now, and the mist came closer, enveloped him. He could no longer see his legs, his fingers. “I wish he'd—I want him to . . .”

“We all do,” Morgana whispered. 

The boat slowed down, shuddered, ran ashore. 

“Tell him,” he said, helplessly, unable to see anything now. “Tell him—”

“He knows,” she said, and he sagged, allowed himself to relax into the mist’s cool fingers, fell

fell

fell

until he could not feel the coldness anymore. “Oh Arthur, he knows.”

He already knew.

He gave in.

He slept.

\- - - 

He dreamed

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry?


End file.
